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AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF GENEVA COLLEGE, BY 

HON. RICHARD D. DAVIS. 

August 1, 1843. 



I stand here to address two Societies, formed 
by the students of Geneva College : It is the first 
time that I have ventured to occupy such a posi- 
tion Much and long did I hesitate to assume it ; 
for the business and habits of my life, had led me 
far and forgetfully wandering, from these occa- 
sions, and the topics most appropriate to them. — 
Still I remembered, that, like these young men, 
I once was, as they are, the student of a Col- 
lage, and that like me, soon will they be as I am, 
bejond all of youth but the memory of its scenes, 
and mingling in the world of manhood. 

This relation between us seemed to awaken 
within me an interest in them, and to estab- 
lish on their part, some right to such humble ser- 
vices as I could render them. I remembered too, 
that like the rich and glorious region around it, 
this institution was but opening it3 energies in 
youthful effort, upon that long career of useful- 
ness and reputation, which we trust will be its 
history. 

I thought, that coming from a distant residence, 
to participate in the exercises of this day, would 
evince that natural and proper sympathy in the 
welfare of our West, which none can feel more 
sensibly than I do ; and that I might here pre- 
sent my offering and testimony, to cement and 
strengthen those ties of interest and patriotism, 
which do and forever should pervade and en- 
circle every portion of the people of our own Em- 
pire State. 

Without the science or literature to enrich (for 
such an audience) whatever I should say, I still 
fancied that even an address from me might do 
some good, if it developed in the plainest man- 
ner that interest and connection, which all may 
have in institutions such as this — if it traced in the 
faintest lines, those benefits which can flow from 
such fountains upon the broad surface of the 
community around them ; and if in any way it 
illustrated how the higher grades of education, 
may be made useful to the general welfare, to 
individual freedom, and to the greatcause of hu. 
man progress. 



And above all, I felt that my own deficiencies 
might be held up to those who hear me, to ani- 
mate them to a better career than 1 have run, to 
a more industrious course, and to a higher range 
and reach in those attainments to which they 
have, as I did, now dedicated their lives. Thus 
reflecting, I have come here to offer you a few 
thoughts on the design of education, and the du- 
ty of educated men, in our age and country. 

The Young Men before me, enjoy peculiar 
and remarkable advantages ; high above those 
possessed by the great mass of their fellow be- 
ings. It is of itself great good fortune, to be en- 
tering upon manhood at this time, in this coun- 
try ; but that they share, in common with all oth- 
ers of their own years. 

For a moment let us turn our attention to the 
eminent and exclusive priviliges, which distin- 
guish the few, who, like yourselves, hold posi- 
tions in life which are denied to most young 
men, not only elsewhere, but even in your own 
land. 

How very few of the young men of our coun« 
try, either do or can have the benefits and bless- 
ings which you enjoy. Not one of you, but 
has left at home behind him scores of relatives 
and neighbors, to whom these advantages would 
have been as valuable and as highly valued.— 
The smiles of fortune, the affluence and favor ot 
friends, or your own more meritorious exertions 
have placed you within the walls of a college, 
and devoted your days and nights to the cultiva- 
tion of your moral and intellectual faculties. 1 o 
you, science unfolds her mysteries, and literature 
proffers freely all her pleasures. From the mul- 
titude of your fellows, your fellows in years, and 
your fellows in natural and moral endowment, 
these things are mostly, if not entirely withheld ; 
and here in this peaceful and beautiful retreat, 
protected by the laws and honored by the com- 
munity, you pursue your path ,of pleasantness, 
and walk the ways of wisdom, surrounded by 
privileges and opportunities, facilities and aids, 






which provoke industry, and reward its efforts. 
A thousand favoring influences impel you for- 
ward, in your career. Public munificence, and 
popular approbation, evolve successive contribu- 
tions in your behalf, and even the dull sluggard 
warms at his work, as he remembers the fond 
mother and proud father, whose prayers would in- 
voke heaven's blessing on his progress. You seem 
to be and your are the favorites of fortune, for even 
envy does not scowl upon you with her malignant 
eye, and all things combine to sustain and up- 
hold, to cheer and encourage you in these pre- 
rogatives, which do indeed constitute and charac- 
terize you, as a select and privileged order of the 
people, a chosen class elevated above the rest, 
and endowed with large immunities, and special 
enjoyments. 

Now why is all this ? Why are these young 
men thus blessed by heaven, and favored of man? 
Why, my young friends, are you, as I was, se- 
lected or permitted to enjoy these things which 
are denied to so many others, who deserve them 
full as much as we do, and who perhaps would 
far better improve them ? Why were we taken 
from the multitude around us, and placed where 
we thus flourish above and beyond our fellow- 
men ? What have we done, or what can we do 
more than others, to entitle us to these advanta. 
ges ? How and why is it, that we so few in 
number, are thus pre-eminent in all the enjoy- 
ments of life, and thus peacefully possess, what 
so many others so eagerly and ardently desire ? 
Do you answer me that it is because, under the 
goodness of God, your friends or your own ef- 
forts, have furnished you the means to purchase 
these peculiar and exclusive privileges. Let me 
then ask why even that is allowed, and you per- 
mitted to make that purchase ? Nay, why are 
you tolerated, in enjoyments which others cannot 
obtain ? No, no, that is not the true explanation 
and vindication of these arrangements of the 
world. The humblest of mortals, the most ab- 
ject of the wretched, the lowest of the degraded, 
is as much an object of regard in the eye of na- 
ture, reason and religion, as an angel or a seraph; 
for he breathes by the inspiration of his Maker 
the breath of life; and the immortality of hereaf- 
ter is his. 

But again. Why do the ninety and nine out 
of every hundred, who can by no possibility 
have these things, allow us to have them? Sure- 
ly they have the power, and was there not some 
good reason against it, as surely they would have 
the right to prohibit any one individual from re- 
ceiving more of this world's advantages, than 
can be had by all the others. Who or what 
could prevent a community from making all 
things equal, that can be equalized, or at least 
from devoting all that each has, or can acquire, 
to the common use of the whole ? If it would 
be best, then it would be right to render all things 



share alike. And why it is not best, must afford 
the same and the only true answer, for the ad- 
vantages you are allowed over other men. 

Human happiness is the great object of hu- 
man existence, and the only true end, to which 
we can devote the powers of the human race. — 
To promote and secure it, instinct, reason and 
revelation, conspire in confederated effort, and 
common cause. For it men found society, estab- 
lish government, institute property, ordain cus- 
toms, usages and habits, regulate business, in- 
tercourse, and education, and arrange all the 
vast and complex machinery of civil, social and 
individual life. Now what happiness is it, which 
is thus sought to be" produced, and for whose wel- 
fare are these things contrived and executed ? 
Is it for the happiness of one, or of all ? For 
the welfare of a part, or of the whole ? Is it for 
me, or for you ? or you, or for any other individ- 
ual, or for any class of individuals, that this great 
globe, and its myriad population, move and 
have their being ? Oh no ! it is not ; but it 
is for us all, as one mighty whole. For the 
great aggregate of humanity, in generations past, 
present, and to come. As individuals, we are 
nothing, and less than nothing. It is only as 
members of the human family, that we are 
anything, or can be anything, or can have 
anything. lam nothing and you are nothing, 
but as we are bound and belong to others, and it 
is for their sake, and not ours, that we are what 
wo are, and have all that we enjoy. It is not 
our individuality, but our membership, and fel- 
lowship with others, which originates and supports 
all our rights, claims and powers. It is not we 
ourselves, but these others, who clothe us with 
all our enjoyments, and it is because we are of 
them, and part of them, and upheld by them, 
thatwe arc not utterly insignificant, useless and 
valueless. The individual is nothing, and he 
only rises into importance as he expands his re- 
lations in the family, the society, the community, 
the nation, the generation, and last and highest 
of all, in his being one of the human race, and 
having a common lot in its weal and woe. 

These views are beginning to spread abroad in 
the world, and the rights and duties of individ- 
uals, are almost every where come to be consid- 
ered, as secondary and subordinate to the inter, 
ests of the community, to which they belong.— 
Wealth and labor, the foundation and equity of 
all property in them, and the principle of all pri- 
vate appropriation, and accumulation, are now 
commonly conceded to rest on no other basis of 
right and justice than that which makes them 
most conducive to the general good. The right 
of a community to all that each one of its mem- 
bers can do, for the common and general wel- 
fare is become an admitted principle, and the laws 
and institutions of society, are right or wrong as 
they tend to fulfil or defeat that overruling object. 



into one common fund, from which all should I Labor and property have no existence in society, 



m EXCHANQB,, 



but as they are developed and manifested, main, 
tained and modified by human law ; and that law 
can have no soundness and no sanction, but as 
it promotes the general good, and works out the 
welfare of the whole, by its action on the indi- 
viduals whom it affects and influences. Private 
property and all individual appropriation, are 
right and ought only to be permitted, because un. 
tier wise regulations ihey lead to greater indus. 
try, and thus to greater general aggregate accu- 
mulation. It is the application of these principles, 
which is working (he large and liberal reforms of 
the world, and which is elevating the condition 
of the mass of mankind, by securing to their ser- 
vice and advantage the fruits of their own indus- 
try. 

I have introduced this topic for two reasons : 
First, that I might give my passing reprobation, 
upon that modern socialism, which seeks to per. 
vert these principles, beyond the bounds and 
against the instincts of nature, and to work out 
a theory hostile to the best relations of life, and 
thus overthrow the principles, themselves, in the 
monstrous consequences which are deduced from 
them, as they would do, who would so change 
the organization of society, as to sink the indi- 
vidual and the family into those mushroom asso- 
ciations, whose outrageous absurdity exempts 
them from any severer censure, than that of idla 
follies. 

My other reason was, to enable me to show to 
you, that your great and peculiar advantages rest 
on the same foundation as do all other advanta- 
ges, which are allowed to others. Your education 
and elevation in society are indulged and permit, 
ted on the same principle as are all other indi- 
vidual aggrandisement and acquisition, and for 
the same cause are you encouraged to improve 
your minds that other men are to improve their 
estates. The faculties of the mind are as much 
the rightful property of the whole community as 
the sinews of the body, and men are educated 
not for the good it will do to themselves but to 
others. It is only because the greater amount of 
general good flows from individual property, 
that all property is not and ought not to be held 
in common, and it is on that ground alone that 
menial cultivation is sanctioned in any one be- 
yond what all could share in. Providence pro. 
poses happiness here and hereafter as the re. 
ward of piety and virtue, and at the same time 
entwines these motives around the welfare of the 
universe as its chief and greatest glory. Society 
seeking how it may best promote the prosperity 
of all, enlists the selfishness of the heart in aid of 
the general good, and under wise modifications 
swells the universal aggregate of acquisition by 
those incentives which each feels and follows as 
he struggles for his individual advancement.— 
The good of all, therefore, and not yourgood is 
the reason and the right of your allowance to ac- 
quire your education. Your own happiness, hon- 



or or glory, your personal elevation and improve, 
ment are not the considerations which place you 
here and confer upon you this superiority of con. 
dition. It is not on your own account, but for 
the sake of others, and because it is best for 
them and not for you. You may come here for 
your own sake, or for any motive that you please 
to pursue, but we, the rest of the world permit 
you to come, because we think it best for us not 
for you to have, you have these advantages or 
we would not allow it. We sanction, we sustain 
you here in order that your high improvement in 
moral and intellectual culture may diffuse a wide- 
er influence and larger service over the great in- 
terests of the whole. 

The proud farmer who stands on his own soil, 
won by his own industry, feels no doubt that it is 
all his own, and that he can use it or abuse it at 
his pleasure ; and so he can by the law but not 
by morals, not by principle, nor yet by the spirit 
of that law which permits him to do it. That 
law was made to encourage him to get his farm ; 
to use it as it should be used ; to make it most 
conducive to the greatest good. If he be a 
thoughtful and honest man, he will feel and obey 
this duty for he will know that he has no right or 
title to his estate, but under the law and by the 
law whose trustee he is,to employ it in such way 
as will most contribute to the general welfare. — 
So too, of the educated man : however great his 
faculties and attainments, he holds them for the 
good of all. God gave them, that man might 
have the benefit of them, and society has a right 
to their most beneficial employment. The obli- 
gations of all men to society at large are perpet- 
ual and immoveable, overruling and paramount. 
We are prone to forget them and to feel that so- 
ciety owes us far more than we can be indebted 
to it. Intellectual endowment seems to be so di- 
rectly heaven-bestowed and intellectual attain, 
ment to come from so few sources around us, 
that talented and educated men are apt to over- 
look and disregard the claims which the commu- 
nity has upon them. But there can be no real 
distinction between the obligations to employ in- 
tellectual and material faculties and attainments 
for the general weal ; one as much as the other 
belongs to all, and both are permitted to be used 
for individual purposes, because that most pro- 
motes the welfare of all. One of the reasons 
why your parents were allowed to acquire private 
estates, was that their solicitude for you might 
prompt them to greater exertions for the means to 
send and maintain you here, that by the educa. 
tion you would thus receive, vou might be of 
more use in the world, and fulfil a larger duty to 
others. 

In the views we have thus considered we may 
discover the legitimate principle and purpose of 
education: We may learn by what standard to 
estimate its character ; the philosophy of its 
rights, powers and pretensions ; the scope of r its 



appropriate influence, and the nature and man- 
ner of its action on the great inteiests of man- 
kind in that vast futurity of improvement, which 
we believe that it can be made to accomplish. — 
Contemplated in this light how differently ap- 
pears not only education, but wealth, power and 
all the institutions and arrangements of ihe world 
from that usual estimation in which for so many 
ages they have been regarded, and thus under- 
stood all history, seems to be a dream or a fiction 
too improbable to be real, too absurd to be true. — 
Until recently that great prinicple, the general 
good, seems to have been unknown and unre- 
garded, and government and society almost ex- 
clusively constituted , and conducted for the few 
and not the many. 

The whole action of human affairs has moved 
under culminating tendencies as if all things 
sought the formation and elevation of leaders 
and the depression of the masse? ; the lifting up 
of privileged orders and the humiliation of the 
great body of mankind, rendering them tributary 
to and dependant on the limited number thus 
raised above them. Looking at the past, one al- 
most fancies that millions have lived and toiled 
and suffered to sustain thousands and had no oth- 
er object or purpose in their being ; that this world 
had been made peopled, and continued for the 
senseless and monstrous business of supporting 
in it this small and insignificant number of its 
inhabitants who occupied all its pleasant places, 
engrossed all its honors, and consumed all its 
richness and enjoyments. It was not strange 
that in such periods men supposed that education 
and all intellectual advancement were especially 
and exclusively intended for the benefit of the 
few. Indeed that small portion of our race who 
usually denominate themselves the higher orders 
or better classes of society have had pretty much 
all to say in this world ; they figure in its history, 
monopolize its fame, possess its property, control 
its action, rule in its government, regulate its in- 
stitutions and generally have contrived to extract 
from the many millions below them, all that could 
be made to minister to their own possessions, 
powers, privileges and pleasures. 

Bat, thank God, this is so no longer. The 
Saviour has been upon the earth. He came to give 
temporal as well as eternal happiness. He spoke 
as man never spake before, for he brought the 
wisdom of heaven to rule in the affairs of earth, 
He brought to light not only immortality, but 
life : the life that we now live and all that ap- 
pertains to it. Those sublime and heaven-born 
precepts, to do unto others as ye would they 
should do unto you, and to love your neighbor as 
yourself, difficult and hard as they are to be 
obeyed have already changed the whole aspect 
and action of human affairs. They have already 
wrought more miracles in the moral world than 
are recorded in the Scriptures, or chronicled in 



J the church, and they will go on conquering and 
to conquer until consummated in the last and fi- 
nal glory of our race. To whom did this Saviour 
come ? He came to no class, no sect, no kin- 
dred, no nation, and no generation of men. But 
he came to all and for all, to you and to me. to 
every one, to every a«e and country and clime. 
He came not to kings, not to princes, not to 
privileged orders, but to the people. He was 
cradled in a manger, not in a palace. He had not 
where to lay his head, and he slept in the cottages 
of the poor; and with the widow and the orphan, 
with the publican and the sinner, he&ept his com- 
pany. He was the God of the people, of the 
whole peopta : God over all blessed forever. 

Our land has been the first to inscribe these 
mighty and magnificent truths upon the broad 
banner of her social and political organization, 
and our age is almost the first that has felt them 
moving on the wi :e waters of humanity. There 
was no true notion -of the rights of man, no just 
or complete conception of human freedom and 
universal justice until the Saviour proclaimed 
them. Freedom, equality, justice, benevolence, 
the mutual dependance of man on man, the re- 
ciprocal interest of all in each and each in all, 
the rights ef the poor, the privileges of the hum- 
"ble, the dignity and glory of our divine human 
nature, its right to the cultivation of its transcen- 
dant and immortal attributes, of its moral pow. 
ers and intellectual faculties, the uplifting of man 
and of woman in their lowliest estate, bidding 
them to stand erect in the image and likeness of 
their God, and to look -upwards from earth to 
heaven, — these, all these.now the theme of so ma- 
ny tongues and the hope of so many hearts, were 
unknown, or only seen through a glass darkly 
until Christianity revealed them tothe-conception 
and understanding of the world. 

Having thus contemplated the source and char- 
acter of those principles in which we would look 
for the true object of education, namely, the good 
that it will do to others and -not to the educated 
themselves except as they form a part ol the 
whole, let as briefly consider a single objection 
which may be offered against our proration. — 
Some may objectto this doctrine as too low, too 
humbling, too levelling: that it degrades the in- 
tellect and learning of the world from their high 
estate, and makes them tributary and-subservient 
to the -common mind of the -community, the com- 
mon sense of mankind. These views, they may 
say, will depress .and discourage genius and sub- 
ject all the higher grades of intellect to the ordi- 
nary measure «f mind, making their popular esti- 
mation eueh as to diminish their influence and 
authority over others. I do not know that this 
will not be so, and for one I do not care if it is 
so. I have a profound respect for the plain, sub- 
stantial, honest common sense of the world, and 
believe it to be the only safeguard and guide in 



private or public matters. Genius is often above 
or below this unassuming companion, and talent 
frequently rnns a career brilliant in mischief and 
magnificent in disaster, splendidly ruinous, and 
gloriously frivolous. The men of genius and 
talent occasion nearly all the commotions andca. 
Jamities of the world, and in our own community 
you cannot look into a circle which has not been 
more or less injured if not wrecked by its lumi- 
nary. Too much deference has ever been awar. 
ded not only to genius and talent but to learning, 
wealth, rank, office, power, and all the ordinary 
distinctions of earth. We are eternally overrat- 
ing the importance of these things, our obligations 
to them, and oar dependence on them. The 
great men and great things of life are forever en. 
hancing themselves, seeking to exalt their own 
•usefulness and consequence, and to undervalue 
the humble and common concerns of the world, 
and the people who are engaged in them. We 
can do very well without great men or great things 
as men and things have been accounted great in 
most periods, and I am not one who would allow 
them half the sway and influence which they are 
so fain to insolently usurp and display ; nor would 
I award them any value or any respect but as 
they were instrumental in promoting the welfare 
and progress of the common people and common 
concerns of life. One .good common citizen is 
worth an hundred great men whether they be 
fops or fiddlers, fashionable gentlemen oriearned 
fools, swindling operators or faithless politicians, 
bankrupt merchants or reckless adventurers. 

Our country has adopted as its foundation and 
glory, that the common people, the mass of the 
community are its masters, owners, and control, 
iers, and that all its concerns are to be conducted 
for their benefit, and to afford them the greatest a. 
mount of human happiness. W e believe that 
this world belongs to the people who are in it, to 
the whole people, and not to any class or part or 
portion of them. And above all things do I hold 
that this country belongs to the people in it, as 
much to the poor as to the rich, to the ignorant 
as the educated, and that its entire policy,usages 
and institutions are to be created and conducted ' 
for the good of all, and that its talents and edu. 
cation are equally obedient and subservient to 
this same common authority of all over all. 

The rich have no more authority over the prop. 
erty of the country than the poor, and they hold 
all that they have as much by the permission of 
the poor as by their own, and not by any power 
or right but that which the poor as much as 
themselves have bestowed upon them for the 
common good of the poor, as well as rich. The 
educated have no right to education more than 
the ignorant, and they enjoy their education by 
the permission of the uneducated as much as by 
their own, and for the common good of all, the 
ignorant as well as the educated. If this service 
to all, this usefulness to all, this subordination to J 



all, be to degrade education and talents let them 
be degraded to the lowest depth, for then their 
depression is the elevation of humanity, and well 
fulfils the spirit and purpose of that religion from 
which we derive all our principles which are 
worth possessing. All men cannot be highly ed- 
ucated but it is beneficial in the general result 
that some few should be, and hence you are edu- 
cated that you may subserve that general result 
and promote that general good. I can see no 
other basis on which to place your pre-eminent 
advantages, and if this humbles your pride of in. 
tellect and the lofty arrogance of talent and lear. 
ning, I can only say for one that I would bow 
them to the earth and bury them beneath it to 
advance but one step in the elevation and happi- 
ness of the human kind. 

To make men useful to their fellow men is 
then the great design of education. What form 
and extent of it should be adopted we will not 
here enquire, but leaving this branch of our theme 
let me next turn your attention to some of the 
duties which devolve on you as educated men in 
the present period and position of your country. 

We have seen that Christianity has shed a 
new light on the duty and destiny of men in this 
world as well as in the next. It has brought all 
classes and conditions to the same test and stan- 
dard; that of utility to human happiness, and all 
the more elevated pursuits of life are subjected 
to the same judgment as the lowliest of human 
avocations. We judge the throned monarch by 
the same rule that we would apply to his hum- 
blest subject, and the prince and the pauper, the 
philosopher and the peasant, the ignorant and the 
learned, the rich and the poor, the mighty and 
the humble, all alike are bound by this law, and 
held submissive to its mandates. As men of ed- 
ucation you fall within this authority, and your du- 
ty is prescribed and illustrated by the precepts 
and examples which it has bestowed upon man- 
kind. You cannot escape this doom, for the wide 
world is awaking to it, and every where men are 
beginning to account themselves to be men, and 
entitled to the rights of men. The glorious mul- 
titude of our race will not longer remain as they 
have been for ages past, but instinct and burning 
with new thoughts and hopes and feelings and 
desires of better things, they have risen to seek 
for their long lost inheritance, and will not rest 
or pause until it shall be recovered. 

The education of the world has thus far done 
but little for human happiness in comparison with 
what it can and ought to be made to accomplish. 
The most careless observer sees at a glance that 
infinitely less than should be, is realized from the 
labor and intellect of the human race. It does 
not require one quarter of the time and toil of a 
people to procure a superabundant subsistence for 
the whole, and if well and wisely regulated and 
instructed every community ought to afford to ev- 
ery competent and industrious citizen a comfor 



tible livelihood,and ample means and opportuni- 
ty for moral and intellectual improvement and 
recreation. We see this, we feel this, when we 
look at any other people or any other period. It 
is only now and here amidst our prejudices,hab- 
its and engagements that we fear it cannot be at- 
tained. But much has been done ; enough to 
encourage the faith that more can be and the ed- 
ucated of the world should be the advocates of 
that reformation which will achieve it. In all 
past times nineteen twentieths have labored not 
for themselves and to enlarge the circle of their 
own comfort and enjoyments but for the other 
twentieth, to furnish them with ease and opu. 
lence, luxury and pleasure, while they them- 
selves were destitute of half the necessaries of life 
and shut out irom moral and intellectual culture. 
Now this ought not so to be, and I trust in God 
that the time has come, that the day-spring from 
on high hath visited us, and that it cannot be so 
much longer. The institutions, customs, opinions, 
education and whole arrangement qT society 
which produced such deplorable and dishearten- 
ing results must be wrong ; radically, inherently 
wrong ; and it must be right morally, religiously, 
gloriously right to go for their reform. 

Until latterly, the world sat in dead despair of 
any considerable improvement of its condition. 
Amendment seemed hopeless: All things had 
been so so long that men feared they must re. 
main so forever. Christianity which had reveal- 
ed these better things and brighter hopes, which 
had imparted this new and nobler aim to human 
effort was so slow and difficult in its advance, so 
often perverted to other and opposing purposes, 
that even its divine power seemed almost unequal 
to the reformation it had disclosed and promised 
to perform. Nay, religion itself, was at times so 
interwoven and incorporated in the forms and 
modification of vicious institutions and opinions 
as to lend them its sanction, and to resist the 
plainest reformations of society and the stale lest 
they should prove to be heresies in the church. — 
Still less encouragement was to be found in the 
aid which the arts and sciences gave to dissemi- 
nate the principles of Christianity and apply them 
to the affairs of men, for learning and talents 
bad too often opposed all popular improvement, 
and sustained the worst systems of oppression and 
injustice. The institutions and mode of educa- 
tion of former periods are not sufficiently favora- 
ble to the elevation and advancement of the 
mass of men and to the diffusion amongst them 
of those blessings and advantages to which they 
are justly entitled. In our age and country this 
matter requires the most enlightened considera- 
tion. Our colleges and seminaries of instruction 
and the entire system of education need an a. 
daptation to the times, to the spirit of the age, to 
the genius of the country. They must not be 
depositaries of the obsolete and rusty sentiments, 
doctrines and customs of antededent eras, but 



/regenerated and relumined watch-towers, to en- 
lighten and direct the onward progress of man- 
kind. They must not foster and inculcate the mor- 
als and manners, and opinions which were placed 
around the privileged orders and abuses of the 
earth, but show in their action and influence how 
thoroughly they partake and feel the character 
and impulse of the present day. I regard it as 
the first duty of the educated men of America to 
conform, accommodate and apply our institutions 
of education to the great and fundamental prin- 
ciples and policy of the country: to make them 
nurceries of American thought, feelings, action 
and manners, fit and fair, full and flowing foun- 
tains for freemen to drink from, from generation 
to generation. 

Some men suppose that the whole system of 
education needs a thorough reform.and that more 
of the practical and every day duties and cares 
and character of life should be intermixed with 
the usual studies of the College, Undoubtedly 
much or what is learned has no real value for any 
practical .purpose except as it is an exercise of 
the faculties, and that is frequently more than 
counterbalanced by its frivolity and the vicious 
taste it engenders in the mind. Before those so 
much more competent to decide I will not risk an 
opinion on such a subject ; but this I will say, that 
education in this country must be modernized, 
humanized, republicanized, christianized. ft 
must not in its higher departments be considered 
or cultivated as a substitute for all .participation 
in the affairs of men, as an excuse for indiffer- 
ence to the common concerns of life, as an ex. 
emption from the usual responsibilities of the cit- 
izen, an apology for scholastic acerbity of man- 
ners and aristocratic assumption over others, as 
a shield for licentiousness of conduct, and an ab- 
solution from the plain and homely virtues of or- 
dinary life. Such tendencies have too much 
marked it in every age, and we need a double 
vigilance against them. It is the nature of edu- 
cation as it is of wealth, power, business and 
manners, and indeed of all the distinctions of the 
world, as society grows older to run into these 
exclusive and aristocratic tendencies,and to sepa- 
rate the favorites of fortune widely, distantly.dis- 
dainfully, from the common privileges, pleasures, 
and pursuits of the people. We are bound to 
resist and overcome this ; to render our country 
broad, general, diffusive, equal, universal in its 
advantages ; to curtail all that is taken from the 
many for the benefit of the few,and to repress no 
less the presumption of education and the arro- 
gance of attainment, than the pride of wealth and 
insolence of position. The aristocracy of talent 
and learning changes with almost every genera- 
tion, and seldom lasts as long as the hereditary 
transmission of estates. The genius of to-day is 
to-morrow the parent of a fool, and the child of a 
philosopher is often the inmate of a prison, or 
some poor laborer brightening his dulled faculties 



in the hardships of poverty and toil, ihathisde- 
scendants thus renovated may renew the lustre of 
their lineage. It is to me one of the most pleas, 
ing contemplations of our ■■eouniry, that here and 
under our system families rise but. to (all, and ? fall 
but to rise; that races blend in Babel. like •confu- 
•sion and indistinguishable commixture. From 
the great bulk of our population are constantly 
emerging to eminence some few who fiourisSvfor 
a time and then in their descendants sink back 
again into the common mass, or often go down 
below it, and at the same time from that raass 
are continually falling those whom their poster- 
ity, recuperate, and regain their pristine condi- 
tion. The theory and -principle of our commu- 
nity is to take care of this great, mass and to di- 
minish these two extremes to give to those above 
it no special advantages to sustain them there, 
and to impose on those below it no weight to 
keep them there. We have little solicitude or 
consideration for either extreme beyond what is 
necessary to prevent their injuring the great mass 
and to facilitate their return into the common fold 
and fellowship of the whole. 

The educated men of the United States are 
under a peculiar and paramount responsibility to 
adapt and employ the talents and education of 
the country to the service of the human face, in 
conformity with our institutions and positions. — 
We are mating the great experiment of the 
world. Our progress thus far has wrought won- 
ders over the face of the-earth. It has created 
new views, opinions and thoughts everywhere, 
and already men find new and strange elements 
at work in human affairs. Among these the 
power of public opinion is most; conspicuous and 
remarkable. In our land and under our system 
it is supreme and omnipotent. Educated men 
have most to do in its formation and regulation, 
and this constitutes'their chief obligation to their 
fellow men. If they did not influence others it 
would be of little consequence what they them- 
selves might think, but acting-on other minds and 
imparting their own sentiments and views to all 
classes of society.they alrnostrule the moral world. 
The successor failure of this country in the great 
experiment of -self-government and in improving 
and equalising the condition of its inhabitants, is 
now so far determined that we may say it iscer« 
tail, to succeed if we but will and act to accom. 
plish it. We 'have gone so far that all the world 
besides cannot defeat or disturb our progress and 
if we do fail it will be our own folly that will 
cause it. The faith and confidence andresolu. 
uon of the people to carry on the work is all 
that is wanting to ensure the conduct and policy 
that will complete it. Public opinion is the em- 
bodiment of that faith, confidence and resolution, 
and while that opinion is right, sound and firm, 
all is safe and the great result is sure. Our edu- 
cated men, we who have had these advantages, 
we originate and regulate that opinion and give 



to it all its pulsations, energy and tone. 'How im- 
portant therefore is it that such men should be 
thoroughly imbued with the temper of the times, 
the designs of the age, the principles of the coun. 
try, the 'benevolence and charity which Christian- 
ity has infused into all the purposes of the period 
we live in. Under these views, an American 
citizen, ought to feel that his responsibility is 
greatest among the sons of men, and looking for- 
ward to such momentous results who will dare 
to despair of his country or to withhold his ef- 
forts in sunshine and in storm, from this the com- 
mon cause <S^ our common kind. 

There are those who think that education can- 
not do harm, that every advance in the arts and 
learning and refinement can only be instrumen- 
tal in diffusing human happiness; that individu- 
al intelligence only does good to the individual 
and all connected with him, and that the gene- 
ral cultivation of society but adds so much the 
more to its enjoyments and welfare. I do hot 
hold this'spinion, and to my mind the history of 
the world refutes it. A man may be intelligent 
and accomplished at the expense of all his hap- 
piness, and a nation may be civilized, enriched 
and refined, at the ruin of its comfort and wel- 
fare. Something more and better than art and 
science, learning and civilization, opulence and 
refinement are alike indispensible to individual 
or national well-being: neither of them has yet. 
been or ever will be found without a sound mor- 
al sentiment, vigorous and substantial common 
habits and virtues, honest,equal and just purposes, 
and a generous industry, and unless they are 
associated and ■combined with these humble but 
more important traits they are a misfortune rath- 
er than a blessing to the individual and to the 
community. 

The civilisation, intelligence and refinement of 
the world have been varying from age toage.and 
have existed in every degree without much ap- 
parent connection with or effect upon the condi- 
tion of the great body of mankind. Nor do the 
expanded philanthropy and genera! effort for hu- 
man improvement which distinguish our era o- 
riginate or proceed from any superiority of intel- 
lectual attainment that we may assert over other 
periods. Our age boasts itself better than all that 
have gone before it. But there is much to war- 
rant the belief that in formertimes of which we 
know nothing save that they have been, all the 
arts of fife and the learning and civilization of 
the world were more advanced than they now 
are, or perhaps ever will be again. Much of 
what we think new may be the mere recovery of 
what was lost, and although we perceive that we 
surpass some antecedent periods it is but too ap- 
parent that in many of our boasted improvements 
we are only progressing over a career long ago 
familiar and long ago forgotten. The discove- 
ries of the last fifty years indicate the former ex- 
istence over the whole earth of nations and races 



unknown to oor history, and of arts that we 
know not enough of to comprehend what they 
were. Our own continent is full of these ves- 
tiges of an unknown past whose traces demon, 
strate a state of society most extraordinary and 
"inexplicable by all our records and traditions. — 
Similar results have followed researches in other 
quarters of the globe. But even in periods more 
known to us it is certain that a civilization and 
intellectual advancement have existed equal to if 
not exceeding our own and surpassing all our tro. 
phies of art and science, elegance and refine* 
ment. We are not in all these things what oth- 
ers have been. The cities of other days, the 
public works, the perfection of the fine arts, the 
range of the sciences and all the accomplish- 
ments of life went far beyond our knowledge ; 
and even in the means of subsistence the an- 
cients have sustained a population which our best 
agricultural, mechanical and commercial ie- 
eources could not support. 

And yet all this has happened time after time 
without benefiting the great body of the people, 
or elevating their condition or improving their 
enjoyments, without making them freer, wiser.bet- 
ter or happier. The few only have enjoyed any 
good from them,and to the many they have been 
as it tbey were not or worse. Evidently improve 
ment in art and science ought to advance and aug- 
ment the general happiness. We wonder that it 
has been so little beneficial to the many,and men 
sometimes doubt if an advanced state of society 
be in fact favorable to the true interests of man- 
kind. At this day in some countries where the 
arts of life are most perfectly known and practis. 
ed, and where science and religion burn and 
blaze with focal intensity, the condition of the 
great community of citizens grows only worse 
and worse from year to year as the nation increas. 
es in power, wealth, luxury, and refinement, and 
the people sink in their enjoyments as the empire 
rises in energy greatness and grandeur. 

This ought not to be the history of our country. 
It is the solemn and imperious duly ofoureduca. 
ted men to prevent it,and to reach a far different 
and better result in our futurity. We must send 
forward this nation under other auspices and to 
another destiny. We have already started nnder 
them: we propose to accomplish the freedom 
equality, elevation and enlightenment of the peo- 
ple as a whole, their general happiness and com- 
tort, their enjoyment of more of bodily, intellectu- 
al and moral good than has yet been known. — 
This can be done, this must be done, hat it can 
only be done by the enlightened, liberal and uni- 
iortn agency and influence of the intelligent and 
elevated in society. They must eome up to this 
work and transfuse into the civil and social pro- 
gress of the people, the living spirit of this better 
being that we hope for — the transforming energy 
and potency that will convert all advancement 
into an instrument of good to all that will arrest 



(the tendency to aristocratic distinctions and op. 
pressions as society grows older and riper in ibe 
arts, in knowledge, in opulence and refinement. 
May we not fear that in much of our rapid pro- 
gress, we have been too eager to enlarge our 
wealth and intelligence, our power and resource?, 
our improvements and civilization, and too un- 
mindful of the cultivation of lhos« moral senti- 
ments and feelings, those habits manners and 
virtues which alone can preserve and perpetuate 
our devotion to freedom, our general equality, 
and our common welfare. Be it your part and 
mine to acquit ourselves of this obligation by re- 
sisting all things hostile to the rights, privileges-, 
powers and immunities of the people, which tend 
to the humiliation of the humble and the eleva- 
tion of the exalted, and so far as we can to render 
the onward march of our community a triumph- 
ant and glorious fulfillment of its principles, its 
promises and its hopes. 

The political duties of the educated in this 
country are of such obvious importance that I 
shall be excused for adverting to them on this oc- 
casion. Many of you are aware that I am very 
much of a politician and it may be too much of 
a partisan, but I know too well the proprieties of 
this place to introduce at this lime anything of a 
party character. Here we have nothing to do 
with party and what I shall say to you will be 
general, and as applicable to the one party as the 
other. In this country we are and must be t.o 
more or less extent universally politicians, and we 
are made so by the nature and character of our 
institutions. The forms of our government invest 
us with certain rights which cannot be enjoyed. 
and impose on us certain duties which cannot be 
discharged wi.hout some participation in the pel. 
itics aronnd ns. Every man holds in his hands a 
portion of the power of the State. It is conferred 
on him not for his mere individual gratification 
or honor or advantage hut for the benefit of his 
country, and he is bound to exercise it, bound to 
be a politician, bound to vote at every election 
according to the convictions of his judgement 
and the dictates of his conscience. Believing 
these things and urging them on yoar adoption^ 
and assuming that yuu ought and are to- be of one 
party or (he other, permit me to present a kw~ 
considerations that well deserve the attention of 
educated men in. every party that we by any pos. 
siuility can have. One of the most serious diffi- 
culties in our system perhaps its veriest vice is 
the impetuosity of its progress and that insatiate 
propensity to perpetual excitement and change 
which it engenders in the popular mind. With 
us power rests and subsists on public opinion 
and this makes every party anxious to secure to- 
itself the influence of any present matter of gen- 
eral favor, to catch the popularity of the hour ; to 
study for some new thing to.eaptivate the popular 
feeling. Hence our pcoplie are incessantly be- 
sieged with new notio-as. fanciful reforms of iiru 



9 



rijinary or real abuses, visionary changes, chi- 
merical measures, and a length and breadth and 
height and depth of schemes for the public good 
which noihing could supply but an invention 
fired by the passion for place and power. A 
people thus assailed in every form and from eve- 
ry quarter, and who know ''that they have the a- 
hHity to do or not to do as they please are in some 
danger of becoming prone to act and fond of 
changes. In individual matters it would be dan. 
gerous, and in public affairs nothing can be more 
disastrous than too freeandsfrequent fluctuations. 
The en i ly age and boundiess prosperity of the 
country, the ardor and enterprise of (he national 
character, the daring and ready versatility of our 
pursuits add to this peril and expose us to more 
than ordinary difficulties. "We change too fast, , 
too often and too much. It is the pest of our 
legislation and a general infirmity of our people, 
in their business, politics, and society, fomenting 
and diffusing discontent, excitement, dissention 
and<cotifusion in all classes and conditions of the 
community. The. men of education should in 
their appropriate sphere and position cast their 
weight into the opposite scale, and serve as the 
balancing powerin our social and political ma- 
chine. The restraint of such men on their own 
party is of excellent and efficient service, check- 
ing (he impetuosity of popular impulse, maturing 
and moderating political movements, assuaging 
the severity of party contests and giving stendi. 
liess to the great progress of the country. In the 
political storm when the winds and waves of pub- 
lie commotion threaten our national bark with 
•shipwreck, then, in their respective parties, their 
counsel and their voice should be heard above the 
tempest, speaking for moderation, forbearance, 
conciliation, confidence and peace. 

Allied to this duty is another of analogous and 
it may be equal importance. The pi ogress of so. 
ciety developes two great and- conflicting influen. 
ces struggling for mastery in every community. 
They are the power of property and the power 
of persons, or as they are often desianated capi- 
tal and labor, and between them in all ages rind 
countries and polities, has existed an unending 
contest in which however wealth has nssually 
prevailed. Wo have set our system in operation 
for a different destiny. We give no power to 
wealth but its moral influence and we bestow on 
persons the entire authority of the state irrespec- 
tive of their possessions. The nature and in- 
stinct of property is to accumulate, to enlarge, 
to conglomerate and to influence, 'to this its vital 
purpose, the business and concerns of the com- 
munity. Wealth is power to a great extent and 
for many uses, and it unerringly and inevitably 
insinuates its influence intothe legislation! com- 
merce, business, in'ercourse, society, and generaj 
action of the world. Although we have taken 
from it ail legal and political authority, although 
we seek to diffuse and distribute it throughout J 



the community in small rather than large estates, 
although we have shorn it of many of its attri- 
butes and give it no more than simple naked pro- 
tection, -still it is not to be denied or disguised 
thtt the tendency of the property of 'he country 
is invariably and inherently at. work to reduce 
and diminish the income or wages or earnings of 
labor, down to the cheapest subsistence, in order 
that all not thus consumed, may enhance its own 
profits, mav render its share large, am: 'labors 
share small of the results of human industry.— 
The steadfast, strong, subtle, silent action of 
wealth, its very function and essence fulfils the 
parable that unto every one that hath shall be 
oiven and he shall have abundance, but from 
him that hath not shall be taken away even that 
which he hath. We see this exemplified in our 
own national career. Already the increase of 
wealth in many cities and sections of the country 
has rendered the transition from poverty to even 
a moderate competence an impassable gult to 
much the larger portion of the people. Already 
the extravagance and style of -.reneral hie which 
the rich and fashionable foster into repute and 
thus force into common use exhausts all and 
more than most young men can acquire for them- 
selves und families. Already the currents ot 
aaaretrntinn have swollen beyond the proper 
bounds, a.id that recent calamitious expansion of 
the cro.iit system was no more than an effort to 
estatili-h n„on a fiction and a sham the artificial 
and unnatural concentration and consolidation 
of property in larger massess than its rightful 
owners could combine it; and even now poor 
youn" men find it more and more difficult to 
commence their business whether they oe pro- 
fessionnl men, merchants, mechanics or farmers. 
It is become harder to be poor than it used to be, 
and it is harder to be poor than it ought to be.— 
These evils are incident to the existence ot 
wealth in everv form, and it cannot be without 
them to a greater or les, degree. They cannot 
beeradica.ed.cannot be abolished, but they may- 
be resisted, reduced, alleviated, mitigated. You 
as educated men are heund to aid in this result. 
You. 'if you have caught the inspiration of that 
philanthropy which vour education should teach 
you if you have learned to look mi man as your 
fellow beimrand entitled to something more than 
the be<»-arfy elements of toil, and poverty and 
humiliation, as a being to be improved on earth 
and fiaed for heaven, to be elevated in his moral 
nature and exalted in his intellectual faculties you 
will be found in this contest in its every form on 
the side of man and of woman against the do- 
minion of money and the ascendancy of wealth. 
Around you will gather the poor and the humble, 
the sons and daughters of industry, they whose 
labor makes this world all that it is, they who ask 
but little and have not much, they who seek no 
wrom' and only would not be wronged, they who 
love freedom and only wish the privilege of en- 



10 



joying what they earn, these, the wide mass of 
every community, these will be around you and 
with you, and it is for them now, and in all fu- 
ture time for their countless millions that you 
must stand forth as defender, advocate, and 
friend. Believe me that no cause can be better, 
no service nobler; in life it will be your proudest 
honor, and at death you will go down to a grave 
bedewed and consecrated by the tears of the 
lowly and the poor, the widow and the orphan. 

Another dutywhich seems to me severely in- 
cumbent on educated men at the present time 
shall conclude the discourse which I have already 
extended too far. Men of talents and education, 
they who occupy the foreground of society ought 
to exhibit the best examples of integrity and high 
general moral excellence. God endows them, 
and men permit them to enjoy these eminent dis- 
tinctions for the good that it will do to the world, 
and as the means to effect that good it is right to 
exact such examples from them. I cannot sane 
tion a sentiment which we sometimes hear pro- 
rnulged and more frequently observe acted in so- 
ciety that the possession of high talents, and 
great attainments exempts their possessors from 
the common duties of common life, and acquits 
them of censure for delinquences and offences 
which would disgrace ordinary individuals. I 
would hold them to a severer discipline and a 
more rigid accountability, for their influence 
whether pernicious or beneficial is too extensive 
and effective to admit of any such allowance. 

And ihus much of the general obligation you are 
under as to your moral bearing. The particular 
duty that I would now inculcate and impress on 
your hearts is this, that when you go from these 
halls and enter upon the world you will do so 
with a firm determination to be honest men, to 
pay your debts, to live within your means, and to 
provide a competency for yeur own wants. 

The aristocracy of the old world pillage the 
people by force or by the forms of the law.— 
They openly claim a right to an easy and abun- 
dand subsistence from the earnings of others, and 
they frankly and above board employ the author- 
it.y and power to obtain and enjoy it. We con- 
demn this, but we have a meaner aristocracy, a 
mushroom tribe who plunder a livelihood from 
others by arts and practices not less culpable and 
sail more contemptible. Where in this wide u- 
nion of ours may you look abroad that you do 
not behold scores of men living and who have 
long lived in flush abundance beyond the style 
of nine tenths of the population about them, and 
who yet never earned a dollar, never had a dol- 
lar and never spent a dollar which did not justly 
belong to some one else, men who live in com- 
fort and luxury and operate an easy business or 
some indolent apology for none at all while their 
much wronged creditors with their families go 
unpaid and often unclothed and unfed. a I know 
that many an honest man is unfortunate and 



cannot pay his debts. God forbid that, I should 
add one pang to his sorrow or a feathers weight 
to his misfortunes. Such men I would not I do 
not censure, and such men I cannot harm, for the 
sympathy and confidence of those who know 
them will shield them from reproof and defend 
them from the animadversions that I would ap- 
ply to those only who deserve them. But what 
I mean to assail and to warn you to avoid and 
to oppose is, that too prevalent evil of our land : 
the laxity and licentiousness with which men fail 
and omit to make payment of their debts, and 
then pass on through life in apparent repute and 
estimation as if no such thing had ever happen- 
ed. The tone of public sentiment on this sub- 
ject has run down too low and it should be re- 
stored and elevated. A man's standing ought to 
be affected by his insolvency unless it clearly ocs 
curred without his fault. The reckless career 
of too many amongst us of young men who en- 
ter upon large business destitute of capital, capac- 
ity and conduct and dash on in extravagance 
and desperation at the expense of whom it may 
concern until they explode in an honorable as- 
signment to and for some kindred genius, and 
then renew and repeat the same career of folly, 
fraud and prodigality throughout their lives is not 
consistent with morals or compatible with the 
public good. We can impose no restraint on this 
evil but public opinion', and that is abundantly 
sufficient if it is properly awakened and renovi. 
ted to the subject. It ie time that the moral feel- 
ings of society moved in this matter, and you can 
do no better service to your country than to set 
your lives and actions and influence and exam- 
ple against this enormous abuse. I am well aware 
that by uttering these sentiments' I shall incur 
much censure from those who fall within their 
reproof. But I have not come here to gain their 
favor or applause. I stand here to address men 
younger than myself, to give them some advice 
as they are preparing to embark in the world, 
and I feel a responsibility to truth and to them 
from which I must not shrink. I dare not dis- 
semble 01 deceive them, for I know that at their 
entrance upon manhood the first and most press- 
ing temptation to assail them will be the seduc- 
tive allurements to adventure and speculation 
which these moral harpies will spread before them, 
and the next that easy indulgence which a mis- 
taken public feeling extends to all who become 
insolvent whether by unforseen calamity or by 
that plain and palpaple perdition which awaits all 
who run the career of hazard, extravagance and 
folly which we believe is neither honorable nor 
honest. Had these principles and opinions been 
inculcated by parents and preceptors, and then 
! sustained and enforced by social approbation as 
they so well deserve to be, more than a moiety ot 
I the young men whom within the last ten years 
we have seen wrecked in their fortunes if not 
ruined in their morals, and blasted with infamy, 



It 



would have now been prosperous in circumstan- 
ces, honorable and useful in all the relations of 
fife. Yes, the victims of that very fate from 
which I would rescue you, they, even they, in 
the midst of their misfortunes, humiliation and 
shame will vindicate the propriety of these admo. 
nitions and deplore that they did not themselves 
seasonably have and heed such advice. 

When society permits men to provide for 
themselves and to accumulate such property as 
they can lawfully acquire, that very permission 
creates a duty and binds each to work out his 
own subsistence without any infringement of the 
same privilege in others. Men are made equal 
in this chance of accumulation, and it is against 
all the principles of equal rights, for any one 
man to take from another what belongs to him, 
and ihey who live on others, whether by force or 
fraud, by the pretence of business and position, or 
any oiher cheating violate the fast foundations of 
all society, and ought not to be accounted repu- 
table within it. Educated and professional men 
are apt to fancy that they must support a certain 
style in life whatever may be their income, and 
it is but too common to see them reckless and in. 
different to everything like probity and independ- 
ence in their pecuniary affairs. I advise you to 
take the opposite course, to make it your first oh 
jeet to live within your means, and your next to 
amass some property. No matter if your income 
be small, still live within it, and lay up something. 
A man who cannot save something out of a 
small income, never will do it out of a large one. 
It is of no moment that you can save only a tri- 
fle, for it is not the amount that you begin with or 
can then save, that is anything, but the art, the 
secret, the ability to do it, and the habit of doing 
it; this is the important matter, the thing that will 
be of value to you and facilitate and insure your 
future success, when you can save that which 
will be worth possessing. I do not care to have 
you grow into great wealth, for that is neither a 
benefit nor a blessing to any man, but I am anx- 
ious to impress you with the importance of se- 
curing a competence, a reasonable independence, 
for without it the temptations, trials and exigencies 
of life may impair your integrity, usefulness and 
honor. If he be dishonest who does wrong to 
supply his wants, he must be twice a knave who 
will do it to add to his abundance. 

Indebtedness is bondage, and the man who 
allows himself to incur obligations that he cannot 
pay, to live on at the expense and loss of others, 
or to risk what he cannot loose, must be so dor- 
mant in his moral sense that he is dangerous to 



ive communities, and it will conciliate and recon. 
cile and attach those who cannot have the ad- 
vantages which you have possessed to that cause 
of education, which shall through you requite 
to the mass of men a benignant and beneficial 
return for their allowance, encouragement and 
sanction, and it will show to the world that edu- 
cation is not and need not be hostile, but may be 
and through you is of service to the whole and 
not to you only, but to others and to all. Rely 
upon it that the plain and every day virtues and 
excellencies of life make up all that is most valu- 
able in the world. Talent, education, manners, 
fashion, elegance, magnificence may and uo 
adorn and grace these homely traits, but without 
the sterling and standard attributes of character, 
they are a nuisance and a curse. You as educa. 
ted and elevated men must cast your influence 
where it can do most good, and thus repay to the 
world an adequate and an honest recompense for 
the blessings and benefits the priviliges and advan- 
tages which Providence and society have bestow- 
ed upon you. 

But I must close. Perhaps you will think that 
the discourse I have now made to you runs far 
and wide from the usual line of such occasions. 
It may be that it does, and should it be rightly 
censurable in this respect, I still trust that it may 
prove in the end a source of advantage and use- 
fulness to you. As you perceive, I have not said 
one word to elevate you in your own opinions, 
one syllable to exalt you in your pride of heart, 
to make you feel yourselves above and far dis. 
tant from your fellow men. But I have sought to 
open to you some views of your nature, your du- 
ty and your destiny, which might lead you to re- 
flections and thoughts of your own, more benefi- 
cial to you than anything that I could say. I have 
spoken for humanity; I have vindicated the rights 
of man ; I have connected our institutions and 
principles as a people with their great original, 
the religion of our God, of that Deity, who made 
man in his own image. I have tried to show you 
your place and part in the great drama of life, 
upon which you are so soon to enter, I have stud- 
ied to impress you with a full sense of your obli- 
gations as men and as Americans, as freeman 
and as christians. 1 have delineated your duty* 
I have made your career no path of ease and 
sure success, but one, as you will find it of doubt, 
difficulty and danger, wherein however, if a man 
do not achieve prosperity he may at least deserve 
it. Go then into that world and upon those du- 
ties, and take with you this advice and admoni- 
tion from him who has proceeded you only a 



himself and others. The course that I have re- few years, and who has in his experience found 



commended to you to pursue will do more than 
to benefit yourselves, for it will lead you into 
those habits, manners and principles which lie 
at the foundation of all private and public wel- 
fare, it will make you patterns and examples of 
.probity, n/udence and propriety in your respect-, 



but this one conviction, and conclusion to tell 
you,that the right, the just, the true.the honest, the 
benevolent, the good, are more and mightier, 
wiser and worthier, than the great, or the glori- 
ous ; and are after all, all |and the only objects 
worthy of the regard of an immortal nature. 



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